Lesson in Crustacean Architecture

I've gotten numerous questions as to what exactly is a lobster house, why the hell would I be building them, and general questions about what is involved in making them, I can finally answer them after three weeks of being here. Yesterday we had a meeting with Kelvin Guerrero, who is working on the lobster house project in La Caleta and he gave me a ton of information and has experience making lobster houses and even teaching fishermen how to make them. He's even going to come to Miches to help teach! I'm really excited that everything is falling into place for this project and he is going to be an invaluable resource. He's the guy on the leftholding up the lobster caught from one of the lobster houses they put in at Monte Cristi, a successful pilot project that has shown an increase in lobsters in the 11 lobster houses they put in since 2008. Now they are going to put in 1,000 lobster houses in that location!

There are many reasons why lobster houses work for protecting and catching spiny lobsters. These lobsters are gregarious so they like to stay in groups. Lobster house can contain up to 200 lobsters! The lobsters also release a hormone that tells other lobsters where a good shelter is. They are also nocturnal and hide in crevices close to coral reefs during the day for protection against predators. Here's a photo of lobsters that have taken shelter in a crevice. Many crevices in coral reefs are not large enough to support many lobsters and they are limited, so by providing artificial shelter, you can increase the number of lobsters that survive and allow them to be social. Lobster houses also help fishermen comply with fishing regulations by reducing reef damage due to fishing and lobsters are caught using a net instead of a gaucho, which is a hook that kills the lobster. The net, called a jamo, allows the fishermen to select lobsters that do not have eggs, which are illegal to catch, or are of a commercial size.The lobster fishermen in Miches also use compressors (also called hookahs) to fish for lobsters, which are also illegal. They are usually used for high pressure cleaning but are used by lobster fishermen to stay under water for longer so that they can catch more lobsters. However, there are adverse health effects for using compressors. When the compressor runs out of gas, the fisherman runs out of air and has to make a rapid ascent, sometimes resulting in the bends.

Here’s a photo of two female lobsters with eggs

Fun fact: One lobster can have as much as 50,000 to 1.7 million eggs.

Here's a photo of a lobster house after it has been put into the water. The lobster houses are made from cement, which is partially made from limestone (the same material that corals are made of) and provide a substrate for marine life besides providing shelter for lobsters.

Here are the dimensions for the lobster houses (Sorry about the Spanish and the tiny font)

The lobster houses are made from a wire frame that is welded together and a wire mesh is put on top. Then a wooden frame is added around it and the insides and it is filled with cement. It takes 3-5 days to dry.

Then, the lobster houses are sunk in an area ideally located close to a coral reef, which is where lobsters like to feed during the day, and where there is a hard bottom, which would prevent sand from filling up the lobster house. A GPS is used to mark the locations of the lobster houses because if buoys are used, the houses are susceptible to lobster piracy. To reach the lobster houses, the fishermen either snorkel or SCUBA dive. The houses can be one to 30 meters deep. Two fishermen dive down to the house, one lifts up one end of the lobster house while the other scoops up the lobsters with a jamo. Since the lobsters are afraid of the light they cluster at the back of the house instead of trying to swim away. The lobsters are brought up the surface and only the legal lobsters are kept.

Another fun fact: Lobsters are gregarious and migrate to deeper waters in single file before winter storms

Here's some photos of lobster houses before and after they are put into the water. The lobster houses are made from cement, which is partially made from limestone (the same material that corals are made of) and provide a substrate for marine life besides providing shelter for lobsters.

La Caleta has a few advantages over the lobster fisheries in Miches: 1) it’s a national park so there are many law enforcers, 2) there is already a lobster fishing cooperative in place, 3) there are only 30 lobster fishermen in the cooperative. Although the laws regarding lobster fishing should be enforced everywhere, they are not. While we were at La Gina, one of the fishing communities in Miches, two young Dominicans brought in a bucket of dead lobsters, none of which were even of legal size. The veda on lobster fishing lasts from April to the end of July and they claimed that they had not known about it, although the law has been in effect since 1986. We let them go without any consequence. It’s a problem being a foreigner trying to enforce laws here because Darien and Henry have worked for three years to develop relationships with these fishermen and feel that education is the best way to deal with the overfishing problem because you cannot tell whether the fishermen know the laws or not. However, the fishermen could always claim that they didn’t know the laws. The only solution would be the posting of laws and/or increased enforcement, with consequences such as jail time or boat confiscation; because news would spread fast and people would stop fishing illegally. Although each fishing community in Miches has a CODOPESCA representative that collects fishing data, I don’t know if they could handle collecting the required information from lobster fishers that use casitas. Also, there are many lobster communities that are located far apart that have at least 35 fishers and include Los Mameyes, La Gina, and Sabana de Nisibon.